Category: Swords and Spaceships

A trinity of reincarnated souls orbit and interweave with each other in stories told thousands of years apart, but all in the same location — a cave in the jungle of Belize. The main characters include heirs to the throne of the Mayan kingdom, a young American woman who has gone to the jungle to discover herself, and a charismatic but unscrupulous person vying for the leadership of a new religion after Earth has been devastated by climate change.

Kai-Fu Lee is the former president of Google China; he’s teamed up with novelist Chen Quifan to imagine what AI might be like twenty years in the future and how it will have changed our world and society.

In this midwestern gothic, the Lyons family lives and endures in the ruined neighborhood called the Bramble Patch, surviving the privations of poverty, racism, and the literally ghoulish rule of Barghest, the local underworld kingpin. As the neighborhood and its town fall fully into decay, they learn the truth of an old saying: These bones are gonna rise again.

Dare to Know is a company that has invented a unique technology: they can predict anyone’s death accurately down to the second The narrator of the book is the company’s best salesman, and he’s forecasted his own death in violation of ever company rule because his life is in the crapper and he doesn’t care any more. Then he discovers a problem: he was supposed to die 23 minutes ago, and he definitely is still alive.

In an unnamed slum in a city in Argentina, a young woman finds herself compelled to start eating earth, an act that gives her visions of lost lives — including that of her own mother. Horrified by her visions, she keeps her ability to herself…until she befriends a police officer and word of he abilities begins to spread. Soon, many people are coming to her, desperate to learn what has happened to their loved ones.

Mordew is a sea-battered city, and God lays dead in its catacombs, used for sustenance and magical power by the mysterious Master of Mordew. Nathan is a young boy who lives in the slums of the city, until he is one day sold to the Master of Mordew by his desperate mother. But Nathan has a power greater than the God-eating Master, if only he can figure out how to harness it.

The first in the Chronicles of the Wolf-Queen series, which I remember originally being called Chronicles of the Bitch Queen from the title character’s line: “They called me the Bitch Queen, the she-wolf, because I murdered a man and exiled my king the night before they crowned me.” That is one heck of an introduction for a queen, and it tells you just who you are going to be dealing with.

Yeine Darr isn’t actually a queen yet, but she’s in competition with two of her cousins to ascend to the throne — if she survives the absolutely brutal, back-stabbing power struggle that’s about to happen. And that’s not even touching the gods held captive in the court of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, gods to whom her fate is tied.

The queen of the title isn’t the main character of the book, but her life and death loom large over it. Her king claims she was assassinated; her people know the truth, that he caused her to disappear. When a young resistance fighter finds her long-lost diary, her words and life from beyond the grave spark may spark a necessary revolution.

Sun is the daughter of the queen-marshal who expelled the invaders to their systems and rebuilt Chaonia into a republic to be feared and respected. Now Sun is struggling to follow in her mother’s footsteps and come into her own while navigating the politics of a court who would like to see her removed as heir… or maybe just dead.

The colonizer king of the islands of Hans Lollik decides that he will choose his successor from among the noble families, and that gives Sigourney Rose her opportunity to gain her revenge on him for the massacre of her family–and if she survives, take the throne as queen.

In a retelling of King Lear, three queens vie for the crown of Innis Lear: Gaela, Regan, and Elia, the commander, the manipulator, and the priest. Each has a claim to the throne and thirst for the power and magic that flows through Innis Lear. Each will do anything wrest it from the mad, murderous king. Only one will win.

Eva and Isa are sisters who must battle to the death to see which will be the queen to rule over Myre, a land forged with bloody conquest where only the most ruthless ruler can hope to survive. But before their duel is to take place, Eva is attacked by an assassin — one that wasn’t sent by Isa. As more enemies circle, Eva will soon be forced to choose between survival and the love she still feels for her sister.

Maya is a member of the infamous Dirty Dozen, a group of criminals that operated all over the galaxy before being destroyed in one last job that went terribly wrong. She’s lived countless lives, resurrected over and over again in cyborg bodies. Now the broken remnants of the old crew are getting back together to try to solve the disaster of their last mission–but they’re not the only ones in pursuit of that dangerous secret.

If you didn’t know that William Gibson wrote a screenplay for Alien 3 that was never actually filmed (we got a very different movie), now you do. And it’s been adapted into a novel by Pat Cadigan for your reading pleasure, an authorized fix-it fic where Ripley, Hicks, and Newt face a very different fate.

The Montoya family is one surrounded by inexplicable magic and mysteries they know better than to ask about. But when Orquídea Divina, the matriarch who refused to ever leave their home, even for weddings and baptisms, invites them to her own funeral, rather than answers or a direct inheritance, her transformation leaves them only with more questions. After seven years, this inheritance has manifested differently for each of her descendants… and put them in the line of fire of a mysterious enemy that seems determined to pick them off, one by one.

Riya–not her real name–has been on the run from the Guildmaster who rules all five kingdoms of Thamorr for six years. Every time she tries to settle down and rebuild her life, his servants find her again and she’s forced to run. She’s tired of running… and as powerful as he is, any man can be defeated. With a team of miscreants, smugglers, and thieves, Riya plans to strike at his stronghold and take back her freedom–if she can do so before her selfish allies betray her.

Laina gets tragic news one October morning: Boston police have shot and killed her brother. But soon, this horror reveals something far stranger: monsters are real. And they’re coming out of the shadows now, looking for safety. This shift in the social fabric of the world leads to strife and protests. But the one question no one seems to be asking as society reshapes itself is: what has frightened the monsters so badly that they came out of the dark?

The Escapement is a reality different from our own, and through it rides a lone gunman called the Stranger, on a desperate quest to save his son from a parallel world. The shifting landscape is filled with dangerous versions of things his son loves: clowns, battles, storms, stone giants, cowboys. As he struggles through this shifting landscape toward the Mountains of Darkness, time is running short.

Iris is used to being an object of curiosity in Victorian London; she’s an African tightrope dancer. But while her audience focuses on her looks, her true strangeness is hidden: she cannot die. With no memories of her past and this unnatural power, Iris is obsessed with learning who she actually is. As if her life isn’t complicated enough, she meets Adam Temple of the Enlightenment Committee, who tells her that the world is ending, and they’re looking for a leader in the upcoming apocalypse. It could be her–and she could learn about her past–if she can win the Tournament of Freaks.

A collection of science fiction and fantasy short stories from award-winning author Nina Allen, which includes 14 stories from over the past decade. In the collection is the Hugo finalist short story “The Art of Space Travel” and the British Science Fiction shortlisted story “Flying in the Face of God.”

You cannot talk about foodie SFF without talking about Matt’s Sin Du Jour series, a set of seven novellas about a catering company that specializes in only the most fantastic of customers. This has some of the most loving descriptions of food and its preparation I have ever read in my life, and that’s not even touching the plot. (Full disclosure: Matt and I have the same agent.)

This is an adorable little romance where a trans man who is trying to come into his own as a brujo falls in love with the ghost he’s accidentally summoned and sets about solving the murder that created said ghost. It also takes place around Día de los Meurtos and there’s a lot of delicious food involved, including pan de muerto.

I yelled about how good this book is back in July, and that certainly hasn’t changed. But the reason this book is on the list is that the main character, Graciela, is La Bruja de los Pasteles, the “pastry witch” who can tell what kind of pastry everyone who walks into her shop needs. And there’s some amazing baking scenes in this book. It comes with an endless desire for pan dulce.

Another book about the magic of baking, with a minor mage whose magic only works on bread. Her familiar is a sourdough starter! (So is mine, as a matter of fact.) She’s happy to limit her magic to cookies and cakes until an assassin starts stalking the magic folk of her city, and she has to figure out how to survive being the next target.

This is a really cute book about a kid who does close up magic for fun and is really good at it because he can rip holes into parallel universes and steal their stuff. But what lands this book on the list is Sal and Gabi are both from families with a Cuban parent, and there is a ton of delicious Cuban food to be found in these pages.

Rupert Wong is a guy who is a chef by day, so he does plenty of cooking… it just involves human flesh that he’s serving up to ghouls in Kuala Lumpur. And then he moonlights as an administrator for the Ten Hells, as you do. Then, as a chef/administrator has to take care of occasionally, there are also murders to be solved.

The city of Ora is a place surveilled by Anima, an extrasensory human who monitors everything that happens in its streets and buildings via a living network. This network is Anima’s entire world, but æ take comfort in keeping ær city safe. One day, a stranger comes to Ora, one who brings knowledge of many other cities throughout the world, and Anima begins to wonder at ær purpose… and if æ can keep the city truly safe.

At the age of eleven, Mel and Sarah became best friends. Ten years later, Sarah’s sudden death leaves Mel unmoored. She heads to Morgan’s Gap, a small town in the Appalachian Mountains, to fulfill one last promise. There, in the deep story of Sarah’s family, Mel finds mystery, magic, and healing for herself… but whatever caused Sarah’s death might be coming for her now.

Rora uses her shapeshifting magic to act as a spy for the king, hiding her nature and magic as much as she can. But when a magical plague begins to burn through the kingdom, she discovers her best friend Prince Finley is one of its victims, and if she wants to save his life, she must travel back to the wilderness where she was born in search of stardust.

Frances is a seamstress in turn of the century New York City. Still reeling from the recent death of her brother, her life takes a dramatic turn for the worst when a man attacks her… and ends up dead at her feet with her scissors in his neck. But before she can be condemned, she’s spirited away to Haxahaven Sanitarium under the claim she is deathly ill… and discovers it is, in fact, a school for witches. But Frances has no interest in the small, safe magics of Haxahaven, and the power in her is great enough to attract the attention of those who would perhaps use her… or perhaps help her find justice.

Jade Daniels is a half-Indian outcast in the town of Proofrock who finds solace in the face of an absent mother and an abusive father in horror movies. She narrates her own life and that of the town like they’re the protagonists in those films… until the blood begins to spill in reality and she has to use her genre savvy and knowledge to survive. (Yes, this novel is technically horror, but let me tell you how freaking amazing The Only Good Indians is, too.)

A reimagining of Dracula’s voyage to England, which is from the point of view of the ship’s captain. And it is very, very gay, though his normal dreams of queer desire are intercut with nightmares and unsettling omens because… there’s that whole vampire thing happening on his ship.

A historical fantasy about a lordling exiled to China who has had to come back to an estate he hates after the mysterious death of his father and brother. He hires a magician who happens to loathe his family almost as much as he does to protect him from his enemies… and as you might expect in an SFF romance novel, the I hate you, you hate me relationship gets quickly complicated.

In a gaslamp fantasy world of bicycles and witches, Miles Singer faces a horrible choice — he either has to be bound to his sister as a magic battery of sorts, or condemned to a witches’ asylum — the place where common witches go, rather than the powerful ones of noble blood that secretly serve the throne. But then he meets a gorgeous, mysterious man, and that event turns his life and the world around him upside-down.

A retelling of the Green Man mythos, where a scholar comes to the woods to investigate the legend and discovers that the Green Man not only exists, but is very gay for him.

Hazel and Ben are siblings who live in a strange town where humans and fae exist together. In the woods near their home exists a glass coffin, in which sleeps a fae prince, who after generations unmoving, abruptly awakens. Hazel, who spent her childhood pretending to be a knight, know this is her calling — but it may well be her brother who gets the prince.

A delegation of gods and diplomats has come to the empire Olorum to negotiate trade deals and arcane assistance. But Aqib, a distant royal cousin, has his heart captured by a foreign soldier named Lucrio, and in defiance of all, throws himself into a whirlwind romance that cannot hope to survive the hardships of his world.

Uztar is a land where birds are honored and falconers sought for their power. Twins Brysen and Kylee approach their falconer heritage differently, with Kylee rejecting her ancient gifts and Brysen determined to be the best falconer he can be. When war threatens their home, they must journey into the mountains to catch the Ghost Eagle, with Brysen hoping to save the boy he loves and Kylee hoping to protect her brother.

Katrell has been trying to keep herself and her unemployed mother afloat with her ability to talk to the dead, but it doesn’t pay as much as you’d think. And a new problem soon presents itself–she’s attracting attention from the dead side of the equation, and is being warned under no uncertain terms to stop. While she’s willing to play chicken with ghosts, when she accidentally raises someone from the dead, she realizes she might have a new business model — but it’s coming withe a price tag she doesn’t yet realize.

After losing the competition between magicians, Daron’s less concerned with his fall being town gossip and far more with the disappearance of Kallia, whom he’s fallen in love with — and is now quite probably in the hands of a dangerous rival magician. As he tries to find his way to her, Kallia has found herself in a world of mirrors, memories, and illusions, where she’s about to get offered more power than she can imagine, but at a devastating cost.

General Floré has sacrificed much as a warrior of the Stormguard Commandos, perpetrated horrors in the rotstorm that covers the ruins of the Empire she swore to defeat. But now she’s out and done fighting… until her daughter is kidnapped and taken across a land of monsters and ancient gods. If she’s to save her daughter and all her people, she’ll have to take up the Stormguard mantle again.

Astrid, now with her name remembered and her voice reclaimed, has dedicated herself to taking down the Sisterhood and destroying the aunts of the Gean religion. Hiro and Lito take up their own roles in the rebellion, searching for allies and separately undertaking dangerous missions. And back on Venus, Lito’s sister Luciana must try to survive under the thumb of Hiro’s father until her own opportunity to join the fight presents itself.

Alwyn was raised as an outlaw and was content to live freely in the woods with his fellow thieves… until a betrayal shatters his peace and sends him seeking vengeance as a soldier. Soon he finds himself under the command of Lady Courlain, a noblewoman who has visions of a coming demonic apocalypse — and as darkness gathers to oppose her, it becomes more of a question of how true these visions might be.

A book of Lovecraft-inspired poetic nightmares both cosmic and comic that explore monsters known by that name, and those hiding within racism, sexism, and violence.

2020

This was the easiest pick of the entire list, because this book is definitely my favorite of the the last decade, hands down, no contest. I still cannot get over what a beautiful read this book is, and that’s not even getting into the twists and turns of the parallel worlds and the people in them.

2019

A year that made my choice very difficult because it was one hell of a time for SFF. Ultimately, this book won out because I am a sucker for time loop stories, and this takes what made All You Need Is Kill interesting and then gave it a twist by doing everything out of order, and it’s also such a scream of rage at systemic oppression. Beautiful.

2018

This is my favorite of the Wayfarers series, and I think it’s one that stands on its own to be read. It’s about people finding their place in a changing society, and traditions, and it made me cry — not because I was sad, but because it was just beautiful.

2017

Another tough choice, considering this is also the year of All Systems Red by Martha Wells. But what Neon did with gender in this book and its companion volume (The Red Threads of Fortune) and the absolutely bonkers world they built has imprinted this book indelibly on me. And the rest of the series is great, too.

2016

I did not expect to like this book as much as I did when I read it, and it’s one I just devoured in about two days because I couldn’t put it down. The structure of the story is what makes it work so well, I think: they’re interconnected, self-referential standalone stories that give Lovecraft’s work another twist.

2015

I just want you to know how hard this choice was, coming in from the year that also gave us The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin. Ultimately, this book won out because I’ve reread it more times. Is that fair for criteria? This is my personal challenge, so yes.

2014

The only surprise about this selection, considering the number of times y’all have heard me go on about this book (and the number of times I’ve listened to the audio), is that it came out when? How has it been seven years? HOW?

2013

This is some Le Guin level storytelling, an intense look at a post-genocide refugee alien race coming to Earth and trying to make a new home, and told with some incredibly compelling characters in a great love story. Still not over it.

2012

Ancient Egyptian fantasy! A fairly rare sub-genre to begin with, but this is just such a rich book in character and description. It’s one of N.K. Jemisin’s earliest works, and her absolute writing talent still shines through.

2011

While putting the third book of a trilogy on a list is kind of a jerk move, I love every book in this trilogy to pieces, and the other two were published before 2011, so this is what you get. Start out with The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and you can thank me later.

Princess Lu is still fighting for the imperial throne she knows is rightfully hers, while trying to keep her promise to Nok, the shapeshifting boy that she loves, and his people. But her final opponent is her greatest: her younger sister Min, now sitting on the throne, wielding ancient and unimaginable magic that might just consume her before she learns to control it. This epic sibling rivalry will cost one of them the throne — and maybe both of them their lives.

Senna, a woman with every reason to want to escape her past, has traveled to a facility on Ganymede for a chance to participate in a cutting-edge treatment, one that will erase her traumatic memories. But she quickly finds more than her traumas have disappeared; the side effects have her barely able to recognize herself or her life. With each day the disconnect growing worse, she must work with the other participants to figure out what’s gone wrong with all of them.

Despite growing opposition among the nobility and public, as well as rising economic problems, Queen Jasminda is determined to see unification through. But domestic opposition isn’t her only problem — the True Father has raised an undying army to attack her land, one that can only be stopped by Nethersong. A former assassin named Kyara and a novitiate named Zeli must each go on a dangerous mission if they’re to see this new world forged and survive its making.

At seventeen years old, Rowan has graduated from the brutal training that shows she is fit to be a guardian of Heliana, a floating city that is home to shapeshifting winged lions. But before she can take her oath and her place on the city walls, a mysterious disease begins to tear through Heliana’s children. Two of Rowan’s friends are sent to search for a cure; waiting for them at home, she discovers a truth that could cause the mission to fail if she doesn’t go against her orders and save her friends.

After narrowly escaping the collapse of the Divide, the Sentinels have gathered their survivors and taken stock of what they have to work with: no engines, no way of calling for help, and only themselves. It’s up to Adequin Rake to gather a team to find the materials to get them out — and the allies that will save them from a ruthless enemy still on the hunt.

What if the first Ming emperor was a woman? Set in 14th century China under the rule of the Mongolians, the daughter of a starving peasant family takes on the name and the destiny of her older brother after he dies of despair. She enters a monastery, pretending to be a male novice, and driven by her need to survive and the greatness that is hers in her brother’s place, leads a rebellion.

What if the native peoples of Africa developed steam power before their would-be colonial oppressors did? Everfair is a land created by Black people from many nations, “purchasing” land from King Leopold II to set aside as a safe haven and Utopia for the people of Congo and those who have escaped their enslavement in other nations. It becomes a place of international cultures and peaceful exploration where those who were silences in our version of the world fly airships and tell their stories.

What if the Civil War ended when the dead began to rise from the killing fields of Gettysburg? This new America is a place where certain children (those governed by the Native and Negro Education Act) are forced to attend combat schools where they learn to put down the hungry dead. Jane is one such Attendant who, after graduating, returns to her home in Kentucky to ignore politics as much as possible… until families around her county start going missing.

What if Nazi experimentation had unlocked an even more horrifying weapon to be used in World War II: supernatural abilities? A British secret agent named Raybould Marsh discovers the Reich’s terrifying weapons and realizes he saw them tested before, during the Spanish Civil War. How to eliminated them and the research that created them is a mission of utmost importance to the Allies, barely clinging to survival. But the weapons are not mindless by a long shot. They have their own twisted plans: for the war — and for Raybould.

What if, due to someone piercing the veil, Cairo became the center of the world in 1912 instead of London? The Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities’s youngest agent, Fatma el-Sha’arawi is called in on a case of the utmost import: the murder of an entire secret brotherhood dedicated to the man who opened the veil forty years ago. The twist? The murderer claims to be that man himself; true or not, the mere rumor sets Cairo into severe unrest. Fatma must restore peace to the city and unravel the imposter’s identity — at least she hopes he’s an imposter. Also check out The Haunting of Tram Car 015 for another book in this universe!

What if three enslaved women on the island of Saint Domingue summon the goddess Ezili into the physical world? The three women work their magic when burying a still born baby, summoning the goddess with the unused life. After traveling across space and time, Ezili turns her attention to her summoners and their suffering and plants in them the seeds of uprising.

What if a US senator’s bizarre plan to introduce hippos to the Mississippi River in the later 19th century had actually happened? You get mean-spirited, murderous mammals infesting the bayous of Louisiana, and an entire profession dedicated to wrangling them. This book tells the story of one such crew that braves the wrath of the hippos, and their pursuit of both wealth and revenge. (Full disclosure: Sarah Gailey and I share an agent.)

What if the War in Heaven descended to Paris for its final, bloody chapters? The grand ruin of the city is still filled with magic and mayhem, with the houses of the fallen and the not making alliances and vying for survival while House Silverspires, ailing due to its long-missing founder Morningstar, may teeter over the edge and take the whole glorious wreck with it.